alt Hacker News> This allows them to download the entire contents of your gmail
Does it though? I believe they did that with PRISM by eavesdropping on the unencrypted data transfers within Google's network itself - without their knowledge. Since that revelation came to light I presume Google have upgraded their security.
No PRISM was the legal sharing of data, that's what op described just downloading all your data from the cloud companies. The thing you are thinking of is codenamed MUSCULAR that is evesdropping on unencrypted communication between yahoo and google data centers outside of the US jurisdiction where PRISM didn't apply (at the time).